Gordon Throws Rachael’s Food In The Garbage!

Okay, it’s called hyperbole, but a version of that DID happen. I’ll get to that in a second.

Gordon Ramsey sat down with Rachael Ray this morning. I wasn’t all that drawn to his way-too-tight shirt with necklace and designer (girl’s?) jeans, and his spiky, overly blonded hair.

Rachael had some audience members bring in their own dishes for the chef to taste. (I guess she was trying to avoid him getting near hers.) This was how he described one of them: Dry as “Gandhi’s flip flops.” Gosh, I wish the woman had spit in it. He did say there was nice chocolate tart and frittata. But he told one person to go back to cooking school.

I did like what he said in answer to how his restaurants were doing in the recession. He said one benefit is chefs finding a humbler approach to ingredients.

Talking about his family, he mentioned that his kids make him use a swear jar in the kitchen. Boy, that would buy a few college educations.

Gordon and Rachael went over to the kitchen. He picked up her beach towel pot holder things. He began to make a face and Rachael kept talking and I guess he thought better of it and put it down without saying anything.

So now, THIS was the headline grabbing incident. Gordon was talking about using sweet potatoes in different ways. All of a sudden, he swept a piled of prepared sweet potatoes that were on the counter INTO RR’S GARBAGE BOWL. He obviously thought this tacky looking thing was a mixing bowl and, luckily, it was empty. Nothing was said and they went on with the recipe. Plus, she actually used the expression “cheap and cheerful”.

Gordon mostly got on with it, but RR did pipe in every once in awhile. The truth is it may be that SHE has something to teach him about mogul-dom, so maybe he was hoping to bask in her reflected glory.

One positive note – in marked contrast to the Food Network website, Rachael’s website(s) are amazingly easy to use. They are organized well, it doesn’t take a million clicks to get where you want to go AND there are no pop-ups. What more could you ask? Okay, decent recipes, but let’s not be fussy.

Gordon Ramsey - His Talking Was As Fast As His Food

Gordon Ramsey was all over ABC this morning. First Charlie (Charles when he does the evening news) Gibson (back for a quickie hosting gig at his old haunt at GMA) incorrectly identified Gordon’s show Hell’s Kitchen as being on the Food Network. Amazingly, Gordon didn’t correct him.

Then Gordon set about demonstrating a chicken dish from his book Fast Food, talking so fast that I had to put the closed-captioning on. Even then I could only catch every other word. He browned some chicken pieces and added sherry vinegar*, soy sauce and then honey to the pan. It looked okay, but not spectacular. Oh, some lemon slices went in too. He served it with mashed potatoes that he calls Champ, which is a mashed potato dish of Irish origin.

Later, Gordon bullied Regis so much during a cooking segment that it became tiresome. He did do an interesting recipe, however, where he POACHED lamb, which got rid of a lot of the fat and served it with barely smashed (or even cooked) peas. The lamb did look beautiful, but I think he could have minded his manners a bit more. Plus I would have liked a bit more highlights in chef’s hair…

*I JUST had an unfortunate experience with Sherry Vinegar. For a vinaigrette, I added it to the blender AFTER my French Maille mustard. Then I got a whiff of something really foul. Luckily, I tasted it (I really shouldn’t have, when it smelled that bad) and it had in fact turned. The lesson? Store it in the fridge and always add it BEFORE your precious mustard.

Hell’s Kitchen - A Mess Of A Show

Supplied by FreeFoto.com

Notes from a heck of a time watching Hell’s Kitchen:

I’m watching the premiere of Season Four on the Fox Reality Channel. I don’t even know what this channel is. I never heard of it before. The picture is really good though.

I’ve only been watching for 3 minutes and I’m not sure I can sit through an hour of this. It’s such a total combination of misfits and losers and, not to be unkind, but it’s not the most attractive group either...

Anyway, this REALLY ugly guy gets off the bus with the other contestants and…it’s Gordon himself! I have to admit I didn’t see that coming. I just thought he was a particularly ugly guy. He’s been able to hear all the awful things that the contestants have said about him.

He commands them to go into the kitchen and cook their signature dish. Now, this can’t have been a huge surprise to them all, because isn’t this how each series begins? AND how did the kitchen have all the ingredients they needed, if they weren’t told in advance?

Gordon tastes the dishes one by one, savaging each cook as he goes. Where did they get this people? Seriously, this is dumb. If the prize is to be the head chef at his LA restaurant, wouldn’t you need to start with someone who can cook…someone who is a chef?

Gordon hates everybody. He even throws up after one guy’s dish. (Yeah, that’s real.) Matt combined white chocolate with venison, scallops and caviar. Let’s not forget that last week white chocolate, combined with wasabi and served with smoked salmon, was the winning dish on Top Chef.

Ok, whatever…he likes Rosann's dish. Don’t ask me what it was, because I managed to delete all my notes from this part of the episode and I’m working from memory and fumes right now.

There was a Cornish game hen stuffed into a pumpkin that you know the guy was only doing for comic relief. I think that was the dish that was sitting on top of fried grated potatoes. Gordon ranted as he squeezed tons of oil from them. The genius, Petrozza, who made them, volunteered that there butter in there too.

Vanessa had the best dish of the night - halibut - which Gordon said was cooked and seasoned really well. She also has an irritating ring in her lip (face? somewhere gross). I don’t know how someone with an inevitable low-grade infection near or in her mouth can taste anything…

The inmates (oh wait, they signed up for this) are taken back to the dorms. The women (G calls them GIRLS – go get stuffed, Chef Ramsey!) quickly vote on a leader – the pierced Vanessa – and get to work studying the menu and recipe book they’ve been given for the next day’s dinner service.

The men take way too long electing a captain – they finally decide on Bobby, who prides himself on being the black Gordon Ramsey, after he BEGS for the job – and go to bed, not even cracking open a page.

Isn’t this a bit stereotypical for 2008? The women are good little girls, who do their homework and play nice. The guys are dumb louts, who fight like little boys and only care about position and whether they can beat the girls…Oh, wait a second…THAT is kinda true.

Next day, in the kitchen, Chef Ramsay asks the guys to tell him what the entrées are that are being served. DUH, UH, I DON’T KNOW, one after another says, including Bobby, their leader. One of the “girls” has her hand raised and recites them perfectly.

Ok, this is obviously a problem. If they don’t even know WHAT they are cooking, how can they cook? We find out throughout the episode that basically no one can cook. Why are they there then? Why am I here?

Another thing is just eating at me. That sad sack faced Matt looks like someone…I can’t put my finger on it. WHO is it? It’s driving me crazy. OMG, I know who he looks like…I hate to say this, but it’s David Berkowitz. Oh, that’s not good. I’m not kidding. It’s creepy.

Now this is silly. Chef Ramsey has decided to serve an amuse bouche to each table. They can't even cook what's on the menu. AND it's being served as a flambé something or other. An amuse bouche? Flambéed? At tableside? Am I missing something? Isn't an amuse bouche a little premeal snack that comes from the kitchen?

Plus, I don’t think we ever see exactly what it is. Maybe I blinked and missed it, but it looks like pans are just being set on fire in the dining room for the effect. He appoints 2 of the misfits to handle that, while the others ruin the food in the kitchen.

Bobby talking a big game, but isn’t doing anything. I don’t think I can watch this.

Sharon can’t cook risotto. AND she’s nowhere as good looking as she or the others seem to think. I don’t think I can watch this.

Oh my, the customers are getting restless. IDTICWT.

Jason’s serving the risotto. Let’s hope it’s ok. It’s not. It has burned bits in it. WHY am I watching this?

Jen tries to resuscitate the appetizers. I hope she can.

Rosann becomes the captain and does a better job than Vanessa. Rosann’s accent is nothing short of annoying.

The stay-at-home dad, Dominic, has the most unattractive hair style of anyone I’ve ever seen. This is dumb.

Noone can cook. David Berkowitz is looking at people weird.

Bobby refuses to jump in. He’s obviously afraid to take a stand.

Jen’s risotto is good. Finally the diners are getting their first courses.

Louross, of the weird name and mohawk – there’s always one - becomes the new captain. Bobby is such a boob. Corey (girl team) got her rubber chicken passed around. Louross is getting things together. It doesn’t matter, though, because the customers are leaving.

Gordon has a hard time choosing a losing team. He finally picks the men's. LouRoss is told to pick 2 people to send to the elimination. He picks Bobby because he failed as a captain and Dominic, who admits, “It’s not like cooking for the family”.

Gordon questions them closely. Dominic threw away 30 scallops during service. Bobby is asked directly by Gordon if he did a good job as captain. Bobby says NO, the first straight answer he’s given since he’s been here, says Gordon.

Dominic goes. He looks like a dough boy.

David Berkowitz is staring a little too hard at various people. Jason is particularly unhappy at being beaten by "the girls".

I’m REALLY unhappy I watched this…See you next week.

It's No Secret That Gordon Had A Real Nightmare on His Hands...

I finally got around to watching The Secret Garden in Moorpark, California being pilloried on Kitchen Nightmares.

"Who wants to sit and eat in front of that fat little bastard?", Gordon exclaims as he enters his latest restaurant rescue. No, he wasn't talking about the chef, he was talking about a little statue of a French chef in the dining room of the restaurant.

That wasn't the only immediately obvious problem. It took Gordon a few tries to find the correct entry door, which can't be a good thing for a restaurant. Gordon finds Michel the French owner/chef, who admits to being over three hundred thousand dollars in debt. He needs help, but not enough to shed his proud Gallic exterior. Gordon asks how long he's been running the restaurant and how long it has been quiet. He answers 7 years to both. That's not good, even I know that.

Chef Ramsey takes a seat in the dining room and cringes when he see paper doilies under the water glasses. He orders a salad with shrimp and strawberries. He's not really down with that combination to begin with and after a small taste, he kind of burps it up. Gross. How does he do that on command? (I guess any 14 year old boy could tell me.) The main course of Roquefort stuffed filet of beef fared no better. He said it was as tough as an old boot. AND it was served on a dirty, greasy CHIPPED plate.

Come on! You KNOW you're serving Gordon Ramsey! There are cameras there, for goodness sake, and you give him a chipped plate?!!. Can that possibly have been for real? The carrots were undercooked, perfect if you're rabbit, he says. And he describes the shoe string potatoes as nothing more than a "big ball of grease."

Chef Ramsey's take on Michel: "I'm trying to get inside your mind, so I can start breaking down how stupid you are." After which server Jane opines. "I don't think he likes Michel." Ya think??!

Gordon goes to inspect the kitchen. The drip trays under the burners are full to bursting with oil. The walk-in fridge is a disgusting nightmare. There's mold that he keeps fingering (gloveless). He says this place can't stay open. Gagging, when he finds the old food and maggots sickening, he runs out and gets to the bathroom just in time. Not too strong a stomach, eh, Chef?

When confronted by the horror of his kitchen, Michel acknowledges NOTHING and his first reaction is to disregard all of Gordon's advice, before finally going along with his suggestions. The entire staff spends the rest of the day cleaning. Gordon remarks, "It's good to see Michel scrubbing. He's beginning to show some skills in the kitchen."

It's time for the dinner service. Gordon watches to see what's going wrong (There's nothing right, actually.) A bowl of soup takes 25 minutes to be served, because it has to be cooked. HUH? Whah?! It's not possible that he's sooo clueless that he can't even have the soup made before the evening service. Gordon thinks Michel's complete denial of his shortcomings are worse than if he were a crappy chef...

As a bit of shock therapy, Gordon boards the place up and posts signs that say CLOSED. When Michel sees that, he's really po'ed. He doesn't want any bad publicity associated with his restaurant. He probably should have thought of that before he allowed the maggots and mold to be filmed and shown on primetime television.

Next Gordon overhauls the menu. He gets rid of all the crusted stuff. Jane says GR is brilliant. The restaurant opens for the night. They have 4 new special dishes that they're supposed to be pushing. It goes very well. Everyone is ordering the specials. Then orders start to come in too quickly and, soon, there is chaos in the kitchen and anger in the dining room. Tempers flare and Jane is tired of being yelled at by pompous Michel. She walks out.

It seems to me that there are two problems in the kitchen this evening. Number One is that Michel, who often seems like a cartoon cariature of an agitated French chef, refuses to delegate tasks to his perfectly capable sous-chef Devon. Things are getting backed up and he's not using all available hands to get the food out.

The Number Two problem is Gordon's fault, I think. How can you give an entire restaurant staff a completely new menu at 1 pm and expect them to cook and serve it perfectly at 6 pm?! That's one of the things I don't get about this show. I know they want it to seem like this whole thing happens in the course of a week, but if that is true, no wonder they faltered mightily in the heat of the dinner rush.

Gordon didn't seem to give them all the tools they needed to cope with a new menu and the much bigger than usual crowd. What if he had brought in his own staff and they had run the restaurant for a night with the others observing? THEN they would have actually learned something...by example, rather than by screaming or being screamed at.

Michel's communication skills were the problem according to Gordon. Michel explodes and says the kitchen is closed. The customers are fuming and the dinner service ends in disaster. You know the more I watch this, the more I wonder how anyone leaves ANY restaurant fed and not dying of food poisoning...

The next day the extreme kitchen makeover team takes over and transforms the restaurant. Except not really...usually the restaurants DO look amazing and they really improve things. I didn't think the quaint Frenchified interior was so bad. The new look IS uncluttered, but kinda boring. Michel doesn't love it either.

Dinner time again. the restaurant is packed, after word gets out that Gordon is in town. Miss California is in the house, as is an entire busload of winery tourists. The food is going ok, until Michel learns there is a food critic in the house. He gets nervous. He's shown preparing Gordon's tuna recipe. He oversalts it, and goes out to the critic. She can't even eat it and sends it back.

Michel attributes the problem to Gordon's new menu and he and Gordon start screaming at each other. Frankly, I'm not sure what's going on, because it's impossible to understand them. Every other word is being bleeped out. Gordon walks out in a rage.

Michel continues to hate on Gordon's new menu and insists on making one of his old favorites - the dish that Gordon pronounced as leather-like at the beginning. He plates the Roquefort stuffed filet and is about to have it served, when Gordon decides it's not fair to the rest of the staff to bail and he comes back in. He reasons with Michel, and Jane throws the old plate in the garbage.

Somehow they come up with a decent entrée, which the food critic laps up. Peace is restored in a matter of minutes. Yeah, right...There probably was a catering truck in the back, serving all the disgruntled customers. Michel realizes the error of his ways, at least while Gordon is in the house and Jane is promoted to manager.

It all seemed to end well, except that when the chef is doing those talk-to-the-camera interviews after the whole thing is over, he's sitting in front of that old fat chef statue that they got rid of. I guess he brought everything back in when Gordon left. I also checked his current menu online. While there were no strawberries in the salads, there WERE some of the old dishes, including a bunch of crusted dishes. Let's just hope he's no longer serving mold with them.

I've decided why this show is so watchable. It's really all about Gordon's hair and his three hundred dollar (could it be more?) haircut. It's really a dynamic head of hair - going every which way, very modern, very choppy and the color is gorgeous. He must use more gel than a pastry chef uses butter, but it's worth it.

I don't hate Gordon anymore, he clearly knows what he's doing. But I still believe that you can kill more flies in the kitchen with kindness than you can by shrieking at the staff.

AFTERWORD: Relevant to Emiline's comment are two articles I found. It's hard to believe that the show is THAT staged, but it's equally hard to believe that nothing goes on to move the action forward in a more dramatic way. Check these out:

'Reality' TV show is deceiving

Restaurant, owners skewered on TV series "Kitchen Nightmares"

It's A Nightmare, I'm Actually On Board With Gordon Ramsey

I don't like mean and nasty people in real life. I don't really like watching them on television either. Surprisingly, Gordon Ramsey was neither last night on Kitchen Nightmares and he was actually making a lot of sense.

He was trying to turn around a restaurant in Fairlawn, New Jersey... Campania. I know this kind of restaurant. They're in strip shopping malls with lousy service, long waits and mediocre food. And many times they don't have liquor licenses to lubricate oneself against the difficult dining experience.

We are introduced to Joe Cerniglia, the owner/chef. He seems to be much too nice a guy to run a restaurant. Added to that, he didn't go to to culinary school, he doesn't use recipes and he likes to have A LOT of fun in the kitchen with his wait and kitchen staff. Their favorite trick is to lock each other in their walk-in fridge.

But there are big problems. We're told that Campania owes $80,000 and later we learn that they've lost probably $120,000 in the last 18 months.

Gordon makes his first visit, orders and waits for his food. He actually waits over 20 minutes for his tortellini in brodo brought to him by a waitress with the strongest Jersey accent this side of Tony. He pronounces it bland and tasteless and definitely not worth the wait.

The ravioli comes next with huge pieces of garlic in the sauce. Chicken with some kind of cranberry something on it is next. It's too dry, it's too sweet, and it's too big a portion.

Day 2 of Gordon's turnaround begins by discovering that there's way too much food in the walk-in fridge. Mussels are going bad, there's enough chopped garlic to feed all of Sicily, and, considering the restaurant only has a handful of clients, it's money down the drain.

Gordon tells Joe he must start treating Campania like a business. Case in point: that night there are 11 members of staff in a mostly empty restaurant. Gordon says some of them must go home. Joe is forced to choose. He has trouble sending some of the waitstaff home, but he does.

They get serious and the dinner service seems to be ok until things get busy and then backed up. They're getting slow, so slow, in fact, that someone is ordering take away pizza while still sitting in the restaurant.

Gordon lectures Joe on portion size. "I've never seen such humongous portions.""You're throwing 1000's of dollars down the drain."

The next day, Gordon visits Joe's wife and family. He realizes there's a lot of pressure on Joe. Looking into the weepy eyes of the wife, Gordon declares that the business can be turned around.

This whole thing, this episode is kind of not that fun because they all agree with him. They decide his idea to have a signature dish - meatballs - is a brilliant idea. It looks like it's even Gordon's recipe. Didn't Grandma have one that she brought from the old country? They also cut the items on the menu drastically and stick to a smaller number of well-made, freshly cooked dishes.

To sell the idea of the meatballs, Gordon has teeshirts made up with up touting them and he even gives them a personalized van. Gordon's main advice to Joe is not to lose heart. He says, "Don't take it personally, just take it seriously."

The whole crew comes back to work. Gordon has sent a design team to change the outside of the restaurant to make it look more inviting. They also tweak the dining room and give him a new stove. Head Chef Gene has tears in his eyes when he sees it. Gordon snuggles with the owner's wife. He also provides smaller plates to better control the portion size.

They reopen. The restaurant is packed. Things start off fine, but they take a dive. When the tension mounts, Joe decides it's time to take a stroll in the dining room to chat with customers. Things go crazy and people are waiting 2 hours for their food.

Now this is funny. Outside the restaurant, one disgruntled customer is arguing with a pleased one. They're actually screaming at each other. Only in Joisey... The cops show up. Peace is restored.

Josette, the Jersey girl, wins server bingo, which involved the servers selling one of every dish on the menu. (It was an abbreviated menu.) She won a hundred dollar bill.

At the end, things do go well. Joe's mom cries. Gordon the Softie hugs her. Gene the head chef is told by Gordon that he proved he was a real head chef. They break the old big plates in the kitchen. Goodbye to the big plates...Hello profits.

Gordon was positively warm and cuddly, and more importantly, he gave constructive criticism without destroying their egos. It was impossible to disagree with any of his suggestions. It was almost heartwarming.

I WAS kind of disappointed, though. The folks in the restaurant were all good-hearted, fun-loving and eventually hard-working. There were no thieves or layabouts. AND there were no bugs or floods or mold. What kind of challenge is that for Chef Ramsey?

Gordon Ramsay Does Larry

There was something slightly discomfiting about the way Gordon Ramsay answered the same question over and over on Larry King last night. After talking about his abusive father, he refused to see to any connection between his early years and his over-the-top anger. Larry was less annoying than usual as he intimated, as did various callers, that what he dishes out in the kitchen mirrors this childhood abuse.

Gordon tried to explain it away by saying that it takes THAT kind of passion when striving for unparalleled excellence. He repeated several times that slinging a burger or making a Caesar salad is one thing, but, what he does, requires an almost inhuman effort.

When asked by Larry if he was still angry at his father, he said he forgave him, but couldn't forget. Then Larry asked him about his own family. "Everything my father did, I'm doing the opposite"...as a father, even though he described himself as "never (being) a hands-on Daddy." I thought that was rather sad. I'm sure when he's home, he's a wonderful engaging father, but kids actually like to spend time with both parents.

I know his explosive personality is obviously what makes him so compelling to watch. And, obviously, he knows what he's talking about when it has to with food and restaurant kitchens. But I still would have preferred it if he had just come out and said, yes, a bad temper is in his blood...that he saw it modeled by his father for so long, and that's how HE learned to deal with conflict. A little self-knowledge goes a long way and it would probably make us watch him even more, if we knew he struggled to keep certain elements of his personality under control.

I believe you CAN have culinary mastery without fireworks in the kitchen, but of course he wouldn’t be half as much fun to watch and it’s as much about that as it is his cooking (at least in his television career). And he is gloriously unrepentant, which, I guess, we also like.

The cooking segment of the show consisted of Gordon showing Larry how to deal with his schmear, and, no, I’m not talking about what happens in an awkward moment in a doctor’s office. I’m talking about what Larry does to his bagel. AND it just goes to show that Gordon CAN teach in a calm and kind way, even if he did say something rather awful about Larry.

Larry showed Gordon his normal method. He put a tiny amount of cream cheese on an (untoasted) bagel with a little red onion and one slice of smoked salmon. Gordon was appalled that he was so stingy with the cream cheese. Larry tried to explain that's why he was thin. But think about it... Larry is probably 109 years old and they say those calorie restrictive diets can make you live a really long time…not that it would be worth it.

Anyway, Gordon said to Larry, “You’re as tight as a camel’s bottom in a desert storm.” I’m not sure if Larry understood him or even heard him, but it was priceless.

Gordon showed him how to do the proper schmear. And in just this little tiny demonstration, he showed his virtuosity. He spread the cream cheese with the BACK of the spoon (much more effective than the way Larry did it.) He put on just a little tomato, no onions - "bad for the breath". He sprinkled over a bit of DRAINED capers, and then rolled up THREE slices of smoked salmon and arranged them just beautifully on the bagel. It DID look glorious. BUT he didn't have to yell at Larry to accomplish that.

Gordon Ramsay without his temper would be like a volcano without the lava, I know that. I just wish he KNEW where his temper came from, because it seems so obvious to those of us watching from our armchairs.